MAGNETS & MIRACLES ____________ A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Chico ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English ____________ by © Anthony Paris DeCasper 2015 Spring 2015 MAGNETS & MIRACLES A Project by Anthony Paris DeCasper Spring 2015 APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE, INTERNATIONAL, AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES: _________________________________ Eun K. Park, Ph.D. APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: _________________________________ Paul Eggers, Ph.D., Chair _________________________________ Rob Davidson, Ph.D. PUBLICATION RIGHTS No portion of this project may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must acknowledge the entire faculty at Chico State: thank you. I’d like to extend a special gratitude to the cornerstones of my graduate education: To my thesis committee—Dr. Paul Eggers and Dr. Rob Davidson, thank you for your patience, time, and guidance. Your love and passion for narrative art is why I started to write creatively. Dr. Kim Jaxon: our conversations from augmented reality and video games and network theory, to family and grit and professionalism, have forever informed and shaped my identity as an adult, and as an artist . Thank you for everything. Dr. Thia Wolf: you once mentioned when we were designing our UNIV 202 syllabus together that “form shapes content,” and this one simple phrase has transformed and permuted into my writing in exciting, novel ways. Thank you. I appreciate you for taking me on as an apprentice, and for reminding me that the obstacle is always the path. Nothing holy. Dr. Leslie Atkins: I once had a candle with a bright flame that helped me explore my passions and curiosity in the dark, but I blew it out and tucked it away, forgotten. You, Leslie, reminded me of the utility of that candle, and how much fun it is to play in the dark with a bright flame. And thanks to you, that candle—now—burns brighter than ever. What I learned from you has forever changed my life, and you’ll always have my utmost respect and gratitude. Stay passionately curious, Sciencer. iv Additionally it has been an honor working with all of my graduate colleagues in the English department: your mentorship, constructive criticism and drive provided me the support model to be successful as a scholar. And to my students I’ve had the privilege to guide as a Graduate Instructor of Record in English 130, English 30, University 202; mentored in FYE and U-courses: Thank you for helping me become more mindful, more purposeful. More understanding and open-minded. More grounded in the present. Thank you for teaching me. You all allowed me a community of practice that allowed me to be the best version of myself . I wish you all the best—Always explore, stay critical. Remember: if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Thank you to my family and friends: your love sustains me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Publication Rights ...................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... iv Abstract ...................................................................................................................... vii PART I. Critical Introduction .................................................................................. 1 The Foundation: Art, Imitation, Perception, and Reality................. 1 The Framing: Complexity and Composites ..................................... 21 The Insulation, Electrical & Plumbing: Story Craft Elements ........ 28 II. Magnets & Miracles .................................................................................. 36 EOD ................................................................................................. 37 The Nature of Light ......................................................................... 77 Works Cited .................................................................................................................. 106 vi ABSTRACT MAGNETS & MIRACLES by © Anthony DeCasper 2015 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2015 Magnets & Miracles is the culmination of my graduate studies and practice in fiction writing. The two stories that comprise Magnets & Miracles, “EOD,” and “The Nature Of Light,” rely on a composite narrative aesthetic. In my critical introduction, I investigate the three primary principles of literature that informs my creative work in terms of process, form and practice: literary criticism, composite narratives, textual craft elements. vii PART I CRITICAL INTRODUCTION The art of writing is a very futile business if it does not imply first of all the art of seeing the world as the potentiality of fiction. The material of this world may be real enough (as far as reality goes) but does not exist at all as an accepted entirety: it is chaos, and to this chaos the author say “go!” allowing the world to flicker and to fuse. It is now recombined in its very atoms, not merely in its visible and superficial parts. The writer is the first man to map it and to name the natural objects it contains. --Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature There are three primary aspects of literature—and design—that fundamentally informs my creative work: 1. Literary Criticism: Art, Imitation, Perception, and Reality 2. Narrative Structure and Design: Complexity and Composites 3. Narrative Craft Elements: Subtext and Metaphor In the following pages, I will trace, and survey, the significance of these aesthetic and design principles as they pertain to my creative work in terms of process, form, and practice. Subsequently, as I move through the discourse of each construct, I will forward, and synthesize, the construct into a critical reflection on my creative project and its relation to the contemporary literary landscape. The Foundation: Art, Imitation, Perception, and Reality The discourse regarding the relationship between art and life is a conversation that can be traced to the earliest examples of western criticism in ancient Greek writing. 1 2 From Plato to Aristotelian imitation, and, even, anti-mimesis from Oscar Wilde, asking whether art imitates life, or the reverse, while engaging and informative—to the extent that it forwards our attention to the general dynamic state of nature—is asking the wrong question. Not that there is necessarily a correct question to ask about art, but there is a better, current appropriation of our mental faculties as it pertains to critically analyzing art and life from the position of the artist. After reviewing the literature and constructive discourse regarding art and life, a young scholar and artist like myself may formulate the premise that art doesn’t imitate life, or the reverse, but art and life are the same entity, spinning in tandem. So the astute scholar and artist should focus his critical mental faculties on inquiries orbiting the synergistic, and reciprocal, relationship of art and life. Such as: If the psychological and philosophical atoms of art and life are the same, what do we call this fused molecule? All nature? One reality? What is reality? As I’ll show below, working with this question of reality in a literary framework yields fascinating discourse about the general nature of our universe. Furthermore, asking what is reality leads to other interesting conversations about art and life: how does art inform our sense of reality? How does life engage art? As an artist, how can I use this mode of thinking to forward my own creative endeavors? My hope in this introduction is to try and respond appropriately to these questions. How people define the domain of reality reveals a hidden worldview about existence and what is, and is not, considered real. So for the general public, life is referred to as real-life, and as an ideological construct life is indistinguishable from the 3 concept of reality. Often people associate reality with truth, or deconstruct the context and meaning attached to reality and truth. But pure objective reality doesn’t really exist: everything is sifted and sorted through perception. Therefore, perception is reality, to the extent that perception governs our reality. In other words, how we perceive—external sensory stimuli or thought and emotion—shapes how we interpret what is reality and what is not. This brief digression into an aspect of theoretical and philosophical criticism is paramount in establishing both how I study and interpret literary texts, and how I create and write literary texts. Understanding that I see value in viewing art and life as a dynamic reciprocal relationship, that is, one shared reality shaped through subjective perception, will provide a window into my creative work, particularly with my process and form. Ask ten authors their thoughts on the relationship between life and art, and you’ll get a baker’s dozen different responses. For example, Stephen King preaches in his book, On Writing, that the true work of a writer “starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around” (ch. 2). Or, here’s Vladimir Nabokov in Lectures on Literature (1980) speaking intimately about nature and art: